After Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill, the U.S. government shut down. The shutdown went into effect with the start of Fiscal Year 2026 at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1. San Antonio city leadership and UT San Antonio leadership are unaware of what effect a long-term shutdown may have on the community. However, they suspect that the short-term impact will be negligible.
“The short-term impact is nothing to us,” City Manager Erik Walsh said in a press conference addressing the impacts of the shutdown. “We will anticipate that in the short term, as Washington, D.C. continues to deal with this issue, operations and programs will continue.
“If we go past two to three months, we’ll start to see some impacts. I can’t guess what may or may not happen over the next three months in Washington DC. We’ll continue to monitor that and then keep the mayor and the council updated on any potential impacts as they develop.”
While the federal government is shut down, federal workers will not be paid. Essential employees will still be required to show up to work, and nonessential employees may be furloughed or temporarily discharged; however, they are entitled to back pay for work completed during the shutdown.
As of August 2025, there are over 38,000 federal employees in San Antonio. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones highlighted how local federal employees will be affected.
“I think it’s also very important many of our federal workers are themselves veterans,” Jones said. “As we look at some of the DOGE cuts already that have happened in our community that are impacting the services to our veterans, this is another impact to our civil servants, which disproportionately, I think, affects our veterans.
“We’re looking at all of that and making sure that we are best supporting the federal workforce in and out of uniform here in our community.”
On Sept. 30, UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy sent out an email to the student body regarding the university’s preparations for a government shutdown.
The email read, “We are in communication with our federal delegation, our Governmental Relations team, UT System leaders, and campus leadership teams to best prepare for this shutdown. If it occurs, we will continue to provide information to you as quickly as we can.”
Addressing the impact of a government shutdown, the email stated, “For most students, including those receiving federal financial aid, short-term shutdowns typically have caused little disruption. Research and grant activities, however, may be impacted if federal agencies pause new awards, delay reimbursements or issue stop-work orders. The longer a shutdown lasts, the greater the potential impact. For patient care services, we expect reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to continue as an essential function; however, we are monitoring closely.”
A webpage containing frequently asked questions centered on government shutdowns and UT San Antonio was linked as a resource available to students for more information.
According to the webpage, as of Oct. 1, “the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is not updating the PubMed database and is not fulfilling interlibrary loan requests via Docline. PubMed searches will not be up-to-date or complete.” NLM services were cut off immediately and will remain unavailable until Dec. 31.
The webpage continued, “In addition, borrowing of digital materials and print loans from other government libraries will be affected. This includes institutions such as the CDC, Walter Reed, Brooke Army Medical Center at Ft. Sam Houston, and other U.S. Armed Forces medical libraries, which have designated themselves as inactive.”
As the government shutdown continues, additional impacts on the City of San Antonio and UT San Antonio are anticipated. Continue reading pasisano-online.com for future updates.
